INDIANAPOLIS —
To make sure I could vote in the November election and not fail the standards set by Indiana’s voter I.D. law, I took a trip to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles a couple weeks ago to get a new license with my most current address on it.
I had moved this summer and had forgotten to make the change. (Updating your address is one of the things you can’t do online at the BMV.) A press release from the Indiana Secretary of State’s office, about the Oct. 9 voter registration deadline, prompted me to make the trip to the closest BMV.
It was inconvenient and I whined about it, but it wasn’t too burdensome. I have a car and the BMV branch was just a few miles away.
I would have complained more if I didn’t have easy access to the computer-generated documents with my new address required to make the change, or if I was car-less. Indianapolis, where I live, has a meager bus transportation system and there’s only one BMV branch near the downtown area where I work and live.
Those of you who live in rural counties, with only one or two BMV branches for the whole county and little or no bus transportation, know much better than I do what it means to have to make a trip to the BMV.
This is not a criticism of Indiana’s voter I.D. law, which requires me to show a government-issued photo I.D. when I show up to vote.
That’s a more complicated issue for another column — one in which I would have to cite academic studies that have found strict voter ID laws like the one Indiana pioneered in 2005 (and now mimicked by other states) reduce turnout of registered voters, especially among the poor and minorities.
But then I’d also need to explain how it is that voter turnout in Indiana actually went up, from 54.8 percent to 59.1 percent, between the 2004 and 2008 presidential election (when Indiana turned “blue” for Obama.)
My small story is just an acknowledgement of the challenges voters face to stay engaged. There are plenty of others, including the coming tidal wave of TV commercials that will be broadcast by political campaigns over these next few weeks.
The hundreds of thousands of television commercials broadcast by the presidential candidates so far are lopsidedly negative, according to CMAG, an advertising tracking unit at the analysis firm Kantar Media. That’s even more true of the TV commercials run by the outside “super PAC” groups: Those commercials are negative more than 90 percent of the time.
It happens at almost all levels: Last week, I received an email from an organization endorsing state legislative candidates. It called the ones it liked “taxpayer friendly.” It called the ones it didn’t like “political hogs.”
It’s easy to feel repulsed by it and to decide simply to disengage. If you’re feeling that way, I’ll hope you’ll reconsider.
Maybe it helps not to romanticize the past. The much-heralded Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 — which propelled little-known Senate candidate Abe Lincoln toward fame — had plenty of rough-and-tumble exchanges, including one in which Lincoln called his opponent, Stephen Douglas, an “obstinate animal.”
No big deal, really, since Lincoln added: “I mean no disrespect.”
Maureen Hayden is the Indiana Statehouse bureau chief for CNHI, the parent company of the Tribune-Star. She can be reached at
maureen.hayden@indianamediagroup.com.
News Columns
State of the Statehouse: Don’t disengage as election countdown is upon us
- News Columns
-
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Sentencing law could benefit juveniles
Monica Foster is a longtime public defender who’s been pushing uphill in the legal system for a long time. So, when she says the General Assembly is making progress protecting the rights of the disenfranchised, it’s worth stopping to listen to her.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: We’ve created a honey of a problem
The Dutch clover is making its appearance in my yard this week. A cooler-than-usual spring has slowed its arrival by a few days, but it is here for now, bringing the honeybees and bumblebees with it.
-
MARK BENNETT: Time for surf, sand and a good book
I can read a book on the beach. Until I start sweating. Then it feels like exercise, minus the fitness perks. My brain shifts into neutral as the waves roll in, blissfully washing away footprints in the sand and my inclination to think. Better put, I enjoy starting a book on the beach, and finishing it later, elsewhere.
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Requiring photo IDs for food-stamp users has already been tried
Voters in Indiana are required to show their photo IDs before they can cast their ballots. Should food stamp recipients in Indiana have to do the same when they go to the grocery store?
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering Mom a day after Mother’s Day
I don’t think there has been a day in the last eight years that I haven’t thought of my mom. Being all grown up with wrinkles to call my own doesn’t make me miss my parents any less.
-
MARK BENNETT: After running for 28 hours straight, what’s another 5 miles?
Some phrases can only be uttered by a few people, or none at all.
-
MARK BENNETT: Glitches show limitations of high-stakes testing concept
The dog ate my homework. That age-old excuse — based on a shockingly unforeseen complication — rarely works for a kid who didn’t finish yesterday’s math assignment. Yet, in a role reversal, Indiana school children, along with their teachers and administrators, are left to accept an explanation for a disruption best described as the mother of all ironies.
-
MARK BENNETT: One step at a time to save lives
Joan Brown.
Remember that name. -
MARK BENNETT: Sometimes, the mere posing of questions is significant
The era seems quaint now, almost like a fable. When people left their house doors unlocked. When the sight of a police officer in a school meant it was Career Day.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
-
MARK BENNETT: New reality steers Nashville singer to Crossroads for Historical Society concert
People pass through the Crossroads of America for lots of reasons.
Business trips. College campus events. Federal prison sentences. Visits with relatives. Gas pitstops.
Or maybe a career change and a twist of fate.
Ty Brown makes his first stop in downtown Terre Haute as the headliner of a multi-band Sweet Sensations Country Jam concert May 4 in the Ohio Building — a fundraiser for the Vigo County Historical Society. -
HAYDEN: 9-year-old lobbyist weighs in on school safety
Senate Bill 1 shot to the forefront last week, after it was amended by the House education committee with a provision that mandates every public school in Indiana would be required to have someone on staff armed with a loaded gun during school hours.
-
HAYDEN: Republican shift proving to be real
When a federal judge struck down key provisions of the state’s immigration law last week, it seemed anticlimactic.
-
LUNSFORD: A different kind of resurrection story, no foolin’
If you’ve had pets in your family long enough, it’s likely that you’ll see a miracle or two — a dog that couldn’t possibly have lived, but did; a cat that grew to 20 pounds after being born the runt of the litter; a goldfish that had been belly-up too many times to believe it could have survived another day.
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Americans of Hispanic heritage becoming active in Republican party
When Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly decided earlier this year to put off a vote on locking the state’s same-sex marriage ban into the state constitution, it sent a signal that GOP leaders were evolving on the issue of marriage equality.
-
MARK BENNETT: Terre Haute barber ‘sharpens up’ customers for 50 years
People streamed through this section of downtown Terre Haute in those days.
“You could hardly walk by here,” John Hochhalter said, pointing toward the sidewalk outside the window.
The bustle has faded since the early 1960s. Hochhalter remains. He’s still barbering in the same shop he and late business partner Kenny Thomas opened a half-century ago this week. -
MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
-
Americans for Prosperity aim to browbeat GOP lawmakers
If you're outside the Indianapolis TV market, you may not have seen yet the Americans for Prosperity ad that demonizes the House Republicans for resisting Republican Gov. Mike Pence's tax cut plan.
-
MAUREEN HAYDEN: Pence may find himself in a mess if he gets what he wants
Here’s a story to consider: A Republican governor with ties to the tea party and possible presidential ambitions decides he wants to slash the state’s income tax rate, but meets with massive resistance from legislative leaders from his own party.
Sounds like the scenario playing out in the Indiana Statehouse, right? -
MARK BENNETT: Reflections of grid success stir with Brent Anderson’s passing
A few hundred miles away, and nearly 40 years gone by, a special game ball still occupies a fond place in Rudy Bohinc’s memories.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: If handwriting is a window to my soul, I’m glad this is typewritten…
Somewhere in the mess I call my “archives,” I have most of my grade school report cards hidden away. I have kept them under wraps, because I want to be long gone when my children — or grandchildren — unearth them and discover that their self-righteous teacher of a dad was, in fact, a terrible student in his formative years.
-
MAUREEN HAYDEN: Are legislators gambling with the future of gaming?
Indiana lawmakers have been debating whether to give the state’s casinos more financial incentives to compete with the shiny new gambling palaces popping up in Ohio.
-
MARK BENNETT: Never truer: Knowledge vital to narrowing ‘skills gap’
The pillar at the gates of Faber College in the movie “Animal House” bore a wise motto, despite its tongue-in-cheek intent …
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Pot decriminalization bill dead, but reduced-punishment aspect still alive
In the flurry of activity at the Statehouse in recent weeks, I missed reporting some sad news for stoners: The legislation to decriminalize marijuana is dead.
-
MARK BENNETT: Great-niece to re-enact Paul Dresser’s musical legacy in Terre Haute show
People can be forgotten. Their lives end, time passes and memories fade.
Often, the only keepers of their legacies are family and friends, who tell and retell their stories, generation to generation.
For Paul Dresser, his fame burned strong enough as a turn-of-the-century, million-seller songwriter to preserve bits of his public notoriety. -
MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘lovely gift’ of a beech tree …
This is not the season that I usually write of trees, for besides a few pin oaks that hang on to the most stubborn of leaves, my woods stand bare and dormant and cold right now. My trees are patiently awaiting the green of spring that I feel, for some reason, is to arrive a little earlier this year than is usual.
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: What to do with that $2 billion sitting around
We Hoosiers like to think of ourselves as special, but when it comes to the current debate in the Indiana Statehouse over the budget, we’re a lot like other states: Grappling with some post-recession questions about how to balance spending and taxes.
-
MARK BENNETT: An Olympic takedown
Imagine an iconic image of American sports history erased.
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Pence sticks to his ‘Roadmap’
As a U.S. congressman, Mike Pence made it perfectly clear how he felt about the need for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
-
MARK BENNETT: Indiana’s ‘skills gap’
A problem lasting decades ceases to be a “problem.” By then, the situation becomes “part of the culture.”
- More News Columns Headlines
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Sentencing law could benefit juveniles
Hoffa Mystery Still Fascinates After 4 Decades
Raw: NASCAR Driver Jason Leffler Dies in Wreck
Ex-NFL Star Chad Johnson Out of Jail
3 Charged in Ohio With Enslaving Mom, Daughter
Raw: Huge Fire Near Yosemite National Park
Tiger on Sergio: 'It's Time to Move On'
Raw: 1 Dead in Shooting at Mo. Apartment Complex
Unusual Heat Wave Bakes Alaska
Raw: Marines Land Osprey on Japanese Ship
Failed Cuba-to-Florida Swimmer Won't Try Again
Fans Cheer Dramatic Heat Comeback
Raw: Volcano Erupts Near Mexico City
Obama Welcomes WNBA Champions to White House
Pa. Girl Who Took on Donor Rules Gets Lungs
Raw: Australian Begins Cuba to Florida Swim
Raw: Obama Arrives in Berlin
Prosecutors Push for Smartphone "Kill Switch"
Raw: Arizona Wildfire Scorches 8 Square Miles
Google Launches Internet-beaming Balloons
Obama Seeks G-8 Support on Syria
Rihanna Hits Fan With Microphone During UK Concert
Obama Renews Call for Nuclear Reductions
Miami Heat Wins in Overtime
Fists, chairs fly in restaurant brawl
Journalist Michael Hastings Dies in Fiery Hollywood Crash
Hairy Leg Stockings Aim to Deflect Male Attention
Inside Kim Kardashian's Premature Labor
Three Charged for Enslaving Mother and Daughter
Spurs' Popovich has no problem with Spurs' intensity
RAW: NSA Director Says 50 Plots Foiled
Paige Butcher Scorches on Hawaii Beach
Video: worst way to load cargo onto a plane
Never-before-seen footage of '08 Times Square bomber
Obama: NSA Secret Data Gathering 'Transparent'
WATCH IT: Lil Wayne tramples American flag
Mariah Carey Looks Beautiful in a Tiny Cut-Out Swimsuit
Out of Control Boat Throws Passengers Overboard
See Lindsay Lohan in Rehab
